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empallinaudio flies - getting burned for good
if you are one of those people that likes to have loads of music available may this will help you save some money. if you are one of those weird ones that only has a very small collection of songs you still might benifit from this one.
so you are getting ready to take a trip (around town or across the country - it doesnt matter) and you want to take your music with you. if you have one you might normally take your portable mp3 player with you. maybe it broken. maybe you never had one. maybe if you are lucky it is going to be a longer trip than your batteries would ever last. so you have to step back into the world of cds.
if you have a cd player capable of playing mp3 then you are one of the very lucky ones. but even with that car cd players are evil badly designed things. this goes for cd changers as well. the design of these devices causes surfaces scratches starting with the very first insertion and continues to the point where your cd are no longer playable. i have seen cds that were dragged on concrete that had less scratches that one played in a car player. aside from not using them there is no way to get around the damage they cause. you can however cut your losses by large amounts.
never play that brand new cd you just got in one of these devices. the quickest way to dodge this is to pop it into your computer as soon as you get home and hit copy disc and then shelve the original. there are some cds (such as dual and enhanced) that may cause you problems with doing this but as a rule straight copies do not generally cause problems when taking this path. contrary to what the music industy may try to tell the world this is perfectly legal under us copyright laws as long as you possess the original even in a damaged condition.
the added advantages to this are numerous. the primary one is that you dont have to spend x numer of dollars replacing that cd due to scratches. nor do you have to replace due to packaging damage or theft. life in a car is a risky one for any size collection. i dont know anyone why does eat or drink in their car and we are all aware of what happens when liquid and paper meet.
only a stupid thief would waste time stealing a stack of burned cds. most thieves still for profit and as a rule people wont waste time with buying burned copies. pawn shops and such wont because of the numerous legal coplications that can arise from such. personally i would but at the price i would pay (10¢ per cd) would make it a waste of time for anyone tying to sell to me.
lets do a little math on that point. suppose you have 20 retail cds swiped out of you car. insurance companies vary on how much they will allow for replacement value so i will use $7 as the cost. that has you out $140. plus $150 for a new window. and what $2000 in gas driving around town trying to replace them. these cost are for example only and will vary wildly depending on location. so you will file the claim with your insurance and they will tell you that the $290 you will spend is all out of your pocket because you have a $500 deductible. and no they dont cover gas costs.
now if you had just lost the same 20 cds as burned copies well first youd probably still have your window as covered above but if not that would be the only real loss other than time. amazon curently has a 50 pack spindle pack for $18 so well go with that. that comes out to 36¢ for each cd. which comes to $7.20 in loss. and look you still have 25* blank ones sitting next to your computer.
another plus to carrying burned copies is gifting. ok yeah you could give the original to someone else as a gift but thats cheap and tacky. ok so maybe your friends are like that but thats your problem not mine. what i am talking about is when you are hanging out with your cheap and tacky friends and you happen to end up discussing that so very album that just came out by such and such wicked cool band. they havent heard it and you happen to have your copy handy. so you let them have the copy you made. if they dont like it they can give it back to you and neither of you have lost anything. if they do like and decide they actually want to buy it then everyone wins. the artist got there 2¢ and the record company got there $19.97 and you and your friend have just found another bond.
addionally by doing this you will feel more comfortable having more cds in the car. now you can be silly and have one of those hundred cd binders packed to the pins but those are bulky and expensive (and $700 in replacement costs). very hard to manage in a quick and easy manner. what i prefer is to use several of the 10 or 20 binders that are readily available at various dollar stores. if it helps they too are usually cheap and tacky. you can get several different colours or just label them with a sharpie to identify what is each one. this one is the really good stuff. this one is jazz and blues. this one is stuff i havent decided if i actually like or not but is stuff people said i might like. this one is good house ebm and trance - wait why is this one only half full? you get the idea. just keep them easy to find.
now here is where the problem gets worse and takes us full cirlce. those cd binders also create scratches on cds. they are nice for keeping things compact for the more you stuff them the more likely you are to get major scratches. but you still want to use them for copies because anything is better than just letting the cd fly in the wind. even if they do it so nicely.
*there are always screw up of one kind or another when doing mass burns. i know i would not let that stack just sit there untouched.
if you are one of those people that likes to have loads of music available may this will help you save some money. if you are one of those weird ones that only has a very small collection of songs you still might benifit from this one.
so you are getting ready to take a trip (around town or across the country - it doesnt matter) and you want to take your music with you. if you have one you might normally take your portable mp3 player with you. maybe it broken. maybe you never had one. maybe if you are lucky it is going to be a longer trip than your batteries would ever last. so you have to step back into the world of cds.
if you have a cd player capable of playing mp3 then you are one of the very lucky ones. but even with that car cd players are evil badly designed things. this goes for cd changers as well. the design of these devices causes surfaces scratches starting with the very first insertion and continues to the point where your cd are no longer playable. i have seen cds that were dragged on concrete that had less scratches that one played in a car player. aside from not using them there is no way to get around the damage they cause. you can however cut your losses by large amounts.
never play that brand new cd you just got in one of these devices. the quickest way to dodge this is to pop it into your computer as soon as you get home and hit copy disc and then shelve the original. there are some cds (such as dual and enhanced) that may cause you problems with doing this but as a rule straight copies do not generally cause problems when taking this path. contrary to what the music industy may try to tell the world this is perfectly legal under us copyright laws as long as you possess the original even in a damaged condition.
the added advantages to this are numerous. the primary one is that you dont have to spend x numer of dollars replacing that cd due to scratches. nor do you have to replace due to packaging damage or theft. life in a car is a risky one for any size collection. i dont know anyone why does eat or drink in their car and we are all aware of what happens when liquid and paper meet.
only a stupid thief would waste time stealing a stack of burned cds. most thieves still for profit and as a rule people wont waste time with buying burned copies. pawn shops and such wont because of the numerous legal coplications that can arise from such. personally i would but at the price i would pay (10¢ per cd) would make it a waste of time for anyone tying to sell to me.
lets do a little math on that point. suppose you have 20 retail cds swiped out of you car. insurance companies vary on how much they will allow for replacement value so i will use $7 as the cost. that has you out $140. plus $150 for a new window. and what $2000 in gas driving around town trying to replace them. these cost are for example only and will vary wildly depending on location. so you will file the claim with your insurance and they will tell you that the $290 you will spend is all out of your pocket because you have a $500 deductible. and no they dont cover gas costs.
now if you had just lost the same 20 cds as burned copies well first youd probably still have your window as covered above but if not that would be the only real loss other than time. amazon curently has a 50 pack spindle pack for $18 so well go with that. that comes out to 36¢ for each cd. which comes to $7.20 in loss. and look you still have 25* blank ones sitting next to your computer.
another plus to carrying burned copies is gifting. ok yeah you could give the original to someone else as a gift but thats cheap and tacky. ok so maybe your friends are like that but thats your problem not mine. what i am talking about is when you are hanging out with your cheap and tacky friends and you happen to end up discussing that so very album that just came out by such and such wicked cool band. they havent heard it and you happen to have your copy handy. so you let them have the copy you made. if they dont like it they can give it back to you and neither of you have lost anything. if they do like and decide they actually want to buy it then everyone wins. the artist got there 2¢ and the record company got there $19.97 and you and your friend have just found another bond.
addionally by doing this you will feel more comfortable having more cds in the car. now you can be silly and have one of those hundred cd binders packed to the pins but those are bulky and expensive (and $700 in replacement costs). very hard to manage in a quick and easy manner. what i prefer is to use several of the 10 or 20 binders that are readily available at various dollar stores. if it helps they too are usually cheap and tacky. you can get several different colours or just label them with a sharpie to identify what is each one. this one is the really good stuff. this one is jazz and blues. this one is stuff i havent decided if i actually like or not but is stuff people said i might like. this one is good house ebm and trance - wait why is this one only half full? you get the idea. just keep them easy to find.
now here is where the problem gets worse and takes us full cirlce. those cd binders also create scratches on cds. they are nice for keeping things compact for the more you stuff them the more likely you are to get major scratches. but you still want to use them for copies because anything is better than just letting the cd fly in the wind. even if they do it so nicely.
*there are always screw up of one kind or another when doing mass burns. i know i would not let that stack just sit there untouched.
